An engine is a fairly stout piece of machinery. It has to be strong, seeing as it's a container for the explosions that occur constantly when your car is running. It's those explosions that create the power to move your vehicle. Fluids run through your engine to help keep the explosions happening efficiently, too, and they must be contained as well. So it's no surprise that an engine would put up a fight if you tried to cut it in half.
The YouTube channel "What's Inside" got a hold of an inline 4-cylinder engine and did what it does best: set out to cut it in half. More 600 million views show that people are interested in seeing things cut open to examine the internals. An engine is perfect for such a channel, but cleaving it in twain isn't an easy task.
That is, unless you have friends with access to industrial saws and presses.
The first four minutes of the video above are essentially a commercial for Mobil 1 Annual Protection motor oil. Skip that part to get to the good stuff. That's when the saws and presses come into play.
The engine puts up a hearty fight, as the stronger material used for the pistons chews up three saw blades. Once the engine is almost entirely cut in half, the team has to resort to wedging it farther apart using a heavy press. Finally, there's a bit of tubing holding it all together. Once that is cut, the whole gives way to two halves.
You get a good view of the cross section of the combustion chamber, and you see that the crankshaft has been cut right in half as well. These guys don't know a lot about the internals of an engine, but we get to see a cool cutaway view and the path that oil takes when poured in from the top.
It's sad to see an engine go to waste, but at least they did it with a 4-cylinder and not a V-8.
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